Science vs Religion

[Quovatis]

Chill Firefly. I share your frustration with the guy, but no need for such harsh language. Lets keep things civil here.

[MadPenguin]

You say God is omnipotent, so therefore you shouldn't ever have any negative consequences

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH

When i read this one of my housemates had to come and check i was alright because i couldnt contain my cry of fustration. I NEVER said an omnipotent God means no negative consequences, where are you getting this from? Give me the quote that made you think i even implied this. I specifically said this isnt the case. Hopefully you understand things better the 4th time...

So, what are labeled "acts of God" or natural disasters, are not a result of God not caring or not being able to prevent them. You are responsible to hear from God, why were you there? Why didn't you flee? Many people on 9/11 somehow were late, didn't make it to work, were warned by God to not go to work that day. God is speaking all the time. Not everyone is listening.

If it were true that God spoke to the righteous and told them not to go, then there would be NO devout christians ever die from natural disasters or terrorism. Are you claiming this is the case? Because i can show you its not. God does not speak to people. If you are hearing voices in your head, i'd get yourself checked out. Because im telling you, its not God.

I never said you could wish away anything. I never implied we could wish away anything, so please do not construct lies and credit me with them. It deflates your arguments.

My mistake, i thought when you said

you willfully forget that it is free will that decides how this world is now

you were saying we can effect all current events with free will and you werent so i apologise. It actually turns out you were implying something 100 times more crazy. As you make clear further down in your post. You were implying that because of one mans misuse of free will, thats when natural disasters started.

All of your arguments are based on things that have absolutely NO basis in reality. I am sorry, but you are severly deluded. We KNOW natural disasters were around before humans were. We KNOW the world is a little under 14 billion years old. Adam and Eve were NOT real. A fact the vast majority of Christians accept, apparently not you. Im curious, did you decide these were truths because you went out, examined the evidence and came to these conclusions, or because you were told this was true and you just accepted it?

Because to reject God is to reject all that is good, light, fun, happy, and beautiful

Here come the mightily "humble" christians telling us they are better than us and live better lives because of their acceptance of God. This statement implies by rejecting God we reject all fun, so an atheist cannot have fun? A very easily disprovable statement, i had fun today when talking with some mates. Your hypothesis is wrong. Shocker.

Do you have an ego problem if you want your wife to only sleep with you, and not every single person in the entire city, starting with intravenous drug users? Is it because your ego is so titanic, so colossal, that you don't want that for her? Could it be that there are benefits that accrue from her not banging every guy in sight? Benefits that you willingly provide?

If when she cheated on you, you preceeded to skinning her alive then raping her to death for example, it becomes obvious you dont really love them because i dont know about you, but i wouldnt even imagine doing this to someone i love. It also becomes apparent at this point you are a psycho, but if you can only get yourself called a God, these kinds of actions mean you are benevolent. And if you think that fate sounds bad, hell will be infinitely worse for an infinite amount of time.

[Firefly]

MadPenguin: this guy sees what he wants to see, makes shit up out of nowhere, and puts words in everyone's mouth, then ignores everything else. You can't argue with someone like that. It's like trying to beat it into someone the sky is blue. I'm done.

[Quovatis]

Originally Posted by MadPenguin

We KNOW the world is a little under 14 billion years old.

I'm sure you made an honest mistake, but the universe is about 14.5 billion years old. The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Traak

You say God is omnipotent, so therefore you shouldn't ever have any negative consequences, everything should be wonderful, he should be there to do everything for everyone to prevent them from ever having any negative consequence, or ever doing something wrong.

This shows a lack of understanding in free will. The God you speak of knows the end to everything. The catch is that even if he gave humans free will he did it knowing the final outcome of any action since he set everything in motion. Unless you presume he created a universe he can't predict then everything that happens is because he designed it that way. Thus, why some people believe in fate. This is also why there's a huge philosophical paradox between determinism and free-will that has no logical solution.

Originally Posted by Traak

As a non-Christian, this world is of ultimate importance, since your entire life is measured in decades, in your view. To the Christian, the miseries we tolerate in this life are nothing compared to the glories of the next life.

As a non-Christian views like that are ignorant and destructive. When you preach such ideas it leads the weak minded to waste their only real time hoping for more time later. The fact is there is no more time. (Good interview that gives some helpful perspective to Christians). As any non-theist will tell you once you're done here there's nothing left.

[MadPenguin]

I'm sure you made an honest mistake, but the universe is about 14.5 billion years old. The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.

Sorry yeah, i meant the universe when i said world, but i was under the impression its about 13.75 billion years old

[Effective]

You might as well give up trying to point out the numerous flaws in traak's argument, he's become some brainwashed that no amount of critical thinking are ever going to be able to break through his protective shell of denial.

The vast majority of us here, know the existence of a god is highly improbable, and if he did exist, we certainly wouldn't worship him just because he does exist.

I can spend all day pointing out evidence for

• Evolution
• The Big Bang
• Carbon dating not being the preferred method for dating the age of the earth
• The God Gap
• The US not being a christian nation
• The hypocrisy in the bible and the people who claim to adhere to it's principles.

Nothing will be able to change the mind of a religious bigot who's so thoroughly convinced we are all going to hell.

Originally Posted by Effective

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

[CutterJohn]

I prefer..

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”


But the best is..

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

-Douglas Adams

[Geist]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

I prefer..

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”


But the best is..

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

-Douglas Adams

I agree completely with the first quote and love the second. Douglas Adams was a genius.

Some thing I wanted to point out was knowing all things and allowing mankind to make bad choices is not an indication of a malevolent god, if anything, be is more just than imaginable. What would be the point our existence if we were mere automatons doing good because there Is no such thing as evil. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm glad I have the ability to make my own choices.

This is not to say I believe one way or another, but the existence of evil does not clearly suggest the intentions of an omnipotent being. Not that we could understand a god-like being's intentions, their mental facilities most likely being far greater than ours.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Spectre

This is not to say I believe one way or another, but the existence of evil does not clearly suggest the intentions of an omnipotent being.

It does speak of its character though. If there is a singular all powerful deity, and it made things they way they are, it is either malevolent, inept, or simply indifferent. None are the mark of a deity I would want to place my faith in.

[Traak]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

It does speak of its character though. If there is a singular all powerful deity, and it made things they way they are, it is either malevolent, inept, or simply indifferent. None are the mark of a deity I would want to place my faith in.

But, God didn't make things the way they are. He gave the first two humans a perfect world inhabited by perfect people. He gave them a tree of life whereby they could be like God, and live forever also. He told them they could eat off of that, and not eat off the one tree in the universe that he told them not to.

And they chose to rebel. Just like anyone who rejects God. And, just like people everywhere and all through time, neither one of them would take responsibility for it. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed Satan.

In fact, what Adam said sounds a lot like what a lot of you are saying:

Genesis 3
11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

It's YOUR fault, God! You are obviously at fault, because I didn't do the right thing, and I am suffering for it! This proves that God can't be real!

However, instead of finding fabulously creative reasons for blaming God for everything, or claiming he can't exist, because he doesn't bow down to your set of parameters that you think should define him, you can just accept Jesus as your savior, and step over into the family of God. If he is real, he will save you. If he isn't, then you haven't lost anything, so you are no further behind.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Traak

But, God didn't make things the way they are. He gave the first two humans a perfect world inhabited by perfect people. He gave them a tree of life whereby they could be like God, and live forever also. He told them they could eat off of that, and not eat off the one tree in the universe that he told them not to.

Correction:

But, God created things the way they are. He created the first two humans a perfect world inhabited by perfect people. He created a tree of life whereby they could be like God, and live forever also. He told them they could eat off of that, and not eat off the one tree in the universe that he told them not to.

He also created eve (which somehow required a rib from Adam which seems legit. I mean he made everything else from apparently nothing). She didn't sway from his laws until he created an evil creature. Note eve at this point really didn't know evil it would seem. So when told by god that she can eat an apple, he wanted her to eat it. That's extremely clear from the biblical writing. How you missed this fact that he wanted a creature to play with that was of his own intellect is beyond me.

That and the writing is a bit sexist I think if you read into as much as some extremists.

Originally Posted by Traak

you can just accept Jesus as your savior, and step over into the family of God. If he is real, he will save you. If he isn't, then you haven't lost anything, so you are no further behind.

Accept the flying spaghetti monster as your one true deity and you will be set free. He touches everyone everyday with his noddley appendages guiding our lives. You're blind for not seeing this; however, he forgives you and won't lead you astray even if you don't believe.

[Traak]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

She didn't sway from his laws until he created an evil creature.

But, he didn't create an evil creature. Satan wasn't created evil, he was created as Lucifer, and was also perfect. He sinned, became Satan, and later tempted Adam and Eve, and they sinned.

[MadPenguin]

you can just accept Jesus as your savior, and step over into the family of God. If he is real, he will save you. If he isn't, then you haven't lost anything, so you are no further behind.

This argument is often called Pascals Wager and is a terrible one. Not only because it implies God is incredibly gullible and wont realise you only believed in him out of selfish reasons to get into heaven. But its based on an unknowable assumption, namely that God is just.

For every God you create who punishes the non believers and rewards the devout, i can make one up (who is just as likely to exist) who has a sort of sick sense of humor who punishes the devout and rewards the non believers. So when we take pascals wager a step further, lets consider the possibilites.

God Exists and is just - the devout "win"
God Exists and isnt just - the non believers "win"
(notice these 2 cancel each other out, we are all evens so far.
God does not exist - clearly the non believers are the "winners" since they havent wasted so much of the little time they have worshipping someone who doesnt exist.

So contrary to what many theists tell you, its actually the more logical decision to be an atheist and not waste your time. I wouldn't actually promote this as a way to convince people of Gods non existence, im just saying dont let the theists get away with this nonsense

Also Traak, if you want to base an argument on something as crazy as the Adam and Eve story, you first have to convince us it is a true story or your arguments will just get met with ill-concealed laughter, no one is taking what you just said seriously. For example, if i made an argument now that only holds true if Elvis Presley were still alive, no one takes my argument seriously because thats a ludicrous claim with no supporting reason or evidence.

[Traak]

Originally Posted by MadPenguin

Not only because it implies God is incredibly gullible and wont realise you only believed in him out of selfish reasons to get into heaven.

God made salvation available to anyone, not just people who have a set of motives that mere men may regard as worthy.

If we had to be perfect, or even anywhere near it before being acceptable to Jesus Christ, who could be saved?

People are stating what they believe, here, and I'm stating what I believe. Convincing? That is God's job, not mine. I state what I believe. Whether anyone is convinced or not is not in my purview.